I am an outspoken, kind hearted, strong woman. I have an amazing group of family and friends. I love my life and I love myself.

I love myself. That is why I am starting this blog. This blog is about my journey to getting fit. The hitch? I am a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman for those of you who don’t know what BBW means). I have about 80-90 lbs. to loose and it is not going anywhere fast. I have decided to change my life. It is going to be a big change. It will take a lot of time and commitment, but I know that I AM WORTH IT!

I am writing this blog to speak to the things that most people think, but are afraid to say. Hell I am afraid to say them myself! Nonetheless, my goal is to say them anyways.

I am writing this blog for inspiration. To inspire myself and hopefully I will be able to inspire others in the process.

I am also writing this blog so that one day I can look back and say WOW! Look where you were only 30 days ago; 6 months ago, 2 years ago. Look at all you have accomplished. Look at all you have to be proud of.

So we all know how mean kids can be right? Calling names, ignoring people, telling other kids that they don’t want to play with them. You get the idea.

My daughter takes all of those things right to heart. Even raising your voice totally overwhelms her. She has been having a hard time lately with kids in her school and daycare being mean. I get that most kids have their moments, call someone a name or do something that may hurt someone else, but I also think that everyone has a right to their own feelings and body. Everyone also has a right to stand up for those feelings and their body or personal space whenever someone is infringing upon it. So now let me tell you how the last 2 days have gone in our house.

Yesterday morning I picked out my daughter’s clothes for her and asked her to get dressed. The first pair of pants that I picked out for her were too small (no big deal), “Here are your favourite jogging pants instead” I said to her. She looked at them and broke down in tears. “I can’t wear those! They make me look FAT and STUPID”.

EXCUSE ME? First of all, let me point out, that we do not use the word FAT in our house (in my blog yes I do, but not in spoken word). I grew up with body image issues. I know what that one word can do to a little girl, even when said indirectly. Even as I am working on my fitness I do not say that I am trying to lose weight or I think I’m fat etc. I say that I am trying to become healthier and stronger.

So I asked her, “What do you mean they make you look fat and stupid? They are your favourite. Your look great in them, you feel good in them. Who made you think those mean things about yourself?” Well apparently, the last time that she wore these particular pants, a girl at daycare told her that those pants made her look fat and it was a stupid outfit that she wearing. My daughter, being herself, did not say anything back to this girl or stand up for herself at all. She just was sad about it. After a bit of coaxing she ended up wearing those pants confidently with the attitude that if this ‘mean girl’ says something again my daughter would tell her that she was being rude and basically to get lost lol

Now onto last night. My daughter came home from school and told me that something had ‘happened’ to her at recess today. Apparently, while playing with a small group of kids, one of the boys asked her to take a look at something. She didn’t want to so he decided to force her head against the fence and hold her there until she looked. No teacher saw, no one did anything, including my daughter. She said she cried because it hurt and told him to quit but he didn’t.

Honestly, I lost my shit at this point. Not going to lie. Seriously? WTF?

So my best parenting advice came out at this point. I told my daughter that if anyone EVER does this to her again…to punch them. I told her that if anyone touches a part of her body without her permission to kick their ass. Lay them out. Push, punch, kick. Whatever you have to do to protect your own body. That is YOUR body and YOUR personal space. NOONE is allowed to enter it without your permission.

She was scared of getting into trouble at school but I reassured her that if that happened she would be ok at home. Obviously I stressed that we do not START fights. We do not hit because we don’t like someone or something or just for no reason. That is important. But as a child, as a girl, she has every right to protect herself.

Do I regret giving her this advice? HELL NO. It’s the truth! Everyone has a right to their own feelings and their own bodies. Do I hope that she punches someone? Not necessarily. But I hope that she does learn to stand up for herself one day. We all have to protect ourselves, no one else will.

It is crazy to believe that when I started this journey I actually felt like crap. Physically and mentally.

A year ago I was always down on myself. I felt ugly and fat and uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt like none of my clothes fit properly and that everyone judged me on how big I was. I was SUPER quiet and introverted when out without my best friends. I couldn’t make it up the stairs at work without getting out of breath. My blood sugars were out of control! I really felt like I was going nowhere in this life of mine.

It is crazy what a year and a half can do. My confidence is at an all time high and I feel great, physically. I actually take selfies and LOVE the way I look. I know its not all about how I look but in all reality, the way I felt about my body totally brought me down. Not saying that I don’t still have those days, everyone does, but they are fewer and farther between. I rely on my girlfriends, in those low times, to help me remember where I have been and where I am going.

What really made me want to write this post was my Zumba class. Zumba is fast paced and you are constantly moving. Shaking your hips, squatting, skipping, jumping, among other things. It is hard but it is SO FUN. When I first started this class I could barely make it through. I did a totally modified version because the jumping and fast paced moves seemed totally impossible. At that time, they were impossible. It HURT to jump, it hurt to do a million calf raise dances, and it sucked! I could not get my body to do what I wanted.

Anyways, in time (AKA a year and a half later), I have built up my stamina, my strength and my stability. I’ve been able to make it through classes without needing to sit out for half of the songs. I am now able to make it through all of the songs in a class and put WAY MORE effort into them. I have even been able to do a lot of the jumping moves that I thought would always be impossible. I still cannot do all of the jumping for the whole class. I still sometimes take 1 song to sit out if I am absolutely winded. I still slack sometimes when I feel like crap. But all of those things are ok because I know that I CAN do it. I AM doing it.

You need to know that the key to a successful fitness journey is not being able to workout hard and for long periods of time. It is not going to the gym and being able to run for an hour on the treadmill or lift 50lb weights or complete an ENTIRE Zumba class. The key to a successful fitness journey is to begin. Begin and keep going no matter how little you can do at first. When I first started with T25 I could only do about 15 minutes before I felt like I wanted to puke. So I did as much as I could and then I stopped and I didn’t feel bad about it because I did SOMETHING.

Just start with something little. Go for a walk, do a 10 minute workout from you tube, take as many breaks as you need to but keep going!

I may not be anywhere near where I want to be. I am not yet be close to my long term goals. I have had set backs but I keep on going and one day I will get there!

Due to unforseeable circumstances, both nights of our Zumba class got cancelled last week. I took full advantage of this, especially considering that my lady business had started and I was feeling like crap. So I lounged around (except for getting all of my steps the night of Halloween), I did little to no excersize…AKA I did NOTHING! I went to work and then came home and sat on my ass! lol

Getting back to it last night was so difficult. Even after just 1 week; I couldnt catch my breath, my muscles spasmed half way through class, and I was totally beat by the end. But man was I proud of myself.

Even though I felt like the class was harder (due to having the week before off and taking FULL advantage of it) I kicked ASS. I got through ENTIRE songs that I have never been able to get through before. I did moves, jumps, kicks that I am not ALWAYS able to do. I performed at a level that I never have before. I’m not sure WHY but damn did it feel good!

It doesn’t feel so great today but I kind of love that burn. It means I worked hard and I will have something to show for it.

I know that I have already posted many breakfast recipes but I just cant help it! Breakfast is my absolute favourite, especially when it is something warm and flavourful. MMM.

So I have a new breakfast favourite and wouldn’t you know it…my daughter LOVES them too. Like refuses to eat anything else (I think I may have created a breakfast monster).

Instead of just plain hard boiled eggs or even egg muffins or peanut butter melba toast that I have been eating previously, I decided to make Lentil and Egg Breakfast Burritos. They are SO versatile, can be made with healthy alternatives and WHO doesn’t love a burrito of any kind?? The lentils add the extra protein that you need and will keep you full and it covers that craving for meat and that I get at breakfast time.

Another reason that I love these Breakfast Burritos is that you can freeze them! This makes it easy to grab them out of the freezer the night before and they are ready for you in the morning. Grab N Go! I made a big batch so we are good to go all week, into next week.

I have made them twice now and I will include both variations just for an idea of how to change it up!

Ingredients:

This is only about 1/4 of the burrito left after I started eating it lol

8 12” Tortillas OR 12 6” tortillas (I used whole wheat)

10 eggs

1tsp oregano

1 red bell pepper, chopped small

1 onion, chopped small

1 zucchinni, chopped small

1 cup lentils uncooked or about 2 cups lentils cooked

1tsp Olive oil

S&P to taste

Directions:

Cook 1 cup of lentils (follow package directions) or use canned.

Let lentils cool.

Heat olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium high heat.

Cook onion until starting to turn translucent, about 3 minutes.

Add your pepper and zucchini and cook until soft, about 5 minutes (this is where you could use your variations).

While your veggies cook, scramble your eggs and oregano. Normally you would add water or milk to scramble eggs but I don’t because I find it gets too watery when you re-heat your burrito later.

Once veggies are cooked, add in your scrambled eggs AND lentils

Scramble until eggs are cooked through. I sometimes will use a lid if the eggs are not cooking as quickly as I would like.

Once everything is finished cooking let it all cool. Shred your cheese while you wait.

Building Your Burritos

Lay out your tortillas

Place about 3-4 rounded table spoons of egg mixture onto the tortilla

Add a pinch of cheese

Roll them up. I use the fold two sides in, then fold down the top and fold the bottom up. But whatever works best for you so that all of your ‘stuff’ stays INSIDE the burrito.

Wrap them with saran wrap and either put them in the fridge or (if you won’t be eating them all right away) put them ALL in a Ziploc freezer bag and put them in the freezer.

Take a frozen burrito out the day before you want it or you can heat from frozen. I usually do about 30 seconds per side for my thawed burritos, add an extra 30ish seconds for a frozen one!

Variations I have used besides this recipe include: red peppers and mushrooms with cheddar and feta cheese, spinach and mushroom with mozzarella cheese. Throw in whatever veggies you love to eat and I am sure it will be good!

Let me know if you try this and what you think. Or if you have any tried and true meal prep recipes that can be FROZEN let me know that too!

Cooking Lentils for the 1ST TIME

Lentils are actually really good

I still have not taken a picture of a fully wrapped burrito. I keep forgetting until I’ve already eaten half of it.

This is an older post that I wrote on a bad day. At the time I had decided not to post it because…*what would people think?!* But if you have read my blog, then you know that I try to be honest…sometimes to a fault.

I am going to post this today because well, I cannot be the only mother who has ever felt this way at one time or another. This is not a constant feeling, it was just a feeling in the moment. This does not make me a bad mom, it makes me a REAL mom. A real PERSON.

A Bad Day

As I sit at the dinner table all by myself, tears falling into my untouched plate of food, I wonder if anyone else has ever had a moment where they hate their child?

It sounds so awful. I cried just thinking it. But I have had moments, like right now, where I have hated my daughter.

Maybe it is not hate towards her, maybe it is hate towards the life that we live or the way that we have to behave or the uncontrollable screaming and name calling that is coming from the other room.

It only lasts a few minutes. I should be able to handle it. But when your child is calling you an awful mother, screaming it at you with such venom, saying they don’t want to live because you are so awful, over and over, it is hard to keep your composure.

When we have a good day, it is SO GOOD. When we have a bad day, it is SO BAD. Sometimes it only affects the time that the ‘BAD’ takes place but a lot of time it puts tension on the entire day and it is so hard to shake it off.

Well folks, I have been adulting for some time now (about 9 years to be exact) and it’s really NOT all it’s cracked up to be. Actually it totally sucks if I am being honest.

Ahh the memories of when life was easy. Not a care in the world. I didn’t have someone else to think about or take care of. It was all about me! Sometimes I wish I could just have a day with no responsibilities. Be able to lay on the couch and watch the new line up of T.G.I.F. and not hear ‘mom could you get me a drink’ or feel the nagging of the dreaded TO DO LIST in the back of my brain. I’d love to be able to eat a pizza and ice cream and not have to worry about it going straight to my ASS or affecting my blood sugar. I would love to get up in the morning and get MYSELF ready and all dolled up and not be worrying about packing lunches and brushing little people’s hair and the melt downs that will come when *God Forbid* you cannot find the shoes that match her shirt!!

Adulting sucks. Along with adulting (at least for me) comes meal prepping and this past weekend was a shit show of meal prepping madness. While having a chat with a girlfriend of mine I made the comment that meal prepping sucked. Her response? BLOG ABOUT IT! KEEP IT REAL! So that’s what I am doing.

Meal prepping SUCKS. Don’t get me wrong, I love the after effects of a good meal prep; the grab and go lunches, no time spent during the week getting things cut or put together. But that is not to say that meal prepping is easy. It is expensive and time consuming. As a single mom I try to spend most of my free time (which is not very much) with my daughter. Especially doing exciting things or going on special outings on the weekend. This does not leave a whole lot of time to get my grocery shopping AND a full meal prep done. Not to mention how bloody expensive healthy food costs! It is insane.

This is WAY better than meal prepping ❤ Corn mazes in the rain ❤

This weekend was no exception. Its fall and with that comes a fun family outing of going apple picking and walking through corn mazes and haunted houses. With all the fun comes the dreaded ‘responsibility’ *blech!*. I know balance is key but honestly its hard. Grocery shopping, cooking 3 separate meals (2 meal preps and 1 dinner for the fam jam), and then chopping veggies and fruit and putting everything together…IT TAKES HOURS.

*GASP* ‘You mean to tell me that you can’t take a few hours out of a Sunday afternoon to meal prep?’ *GASP*

Obviously I CAN and I DID, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about it in the process lol And do you know what all that meal prepping got me? It got me forgetting my healthy breakfast burrito at home and eating a damn chocolate chip cookie in its place! And you know what? FUCK IT. I don’t even care because I love me some chocolate chip cookies for breakfast LOL

Chocolate chip cookies and coffee? There is NO BETTER PAIR. YUMMO!

I will post my ACTUAL meal prep recipes soon because well..they are the BOMB-DOT-COM. But for now…this is your safe place! Please feel free to bitch or share (as the adults call it) about your meal prep, workout, or adulting stories/dilemmas/issues/likes/dislikes. Have at it! Let me hear it!

Ok I know its Tuesday BUT I was busy yesterday so you get this post today instead!

I LOVE Buddah Bowls…or anything that can be mixed into a big bowl of goodness. That is what inspired this dish and my Meal Prep for this week and let me tell you…these were AMAZING! I actually did NOT get sick of eating this AND I was sad when I had eaten them all. That’s saying something after eating them for 4 days in a row haha.

For breakfast I had 1 package of melba toasts with 2tbs of peanut butter spread between them and a piece of fruit, usually an apple or orange. The melba toast and peanut butter gave me the carb and protein that I need and the fruit is great for giving me a little more fiber and carb as well as balancing my meal and keeping me full longer. For lunch I had my Chicken Fajita Buddah bowls.

I had enough fixins left over for another bowl (minus the chicken) so I added 1/2 an avacado instead. YUMMO!

Ingredients:

3 boneless-skinless chicken breasts

1tsp Mrs. Dash Southwest seasoning

1 jar salsa (I like mild but you can use whatever you want)

1 LARGE red onion sliced in skinny strips

2 bell peppers sliced in skinny strips

3 cups (uncooked) Tru Roots Sprouted Rice and Quinoa blend

1 cup frozen corn

Shredded cheddar cheese

Cilantro

Salt and Pepper

Cooking spray

4 bowls or containers that can be put into the microwave to re-heat!

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400F or 200C

Spray sheet pan with cooking spray and lay the chicken breast in the middle with the sliced peppers on one side and the onion on the other

Sprinkle Mrs. Dash Southwest seasoning on both sides of chicken (add any other spices you may want) and salt and pepper on everything, including peppers and onion.

Pour salsa, evenly, over the chicken breasts.

Bake in the oven until the chicken is cooked through (about 25 minutes).

While the chicken cooks, make your quinoa blend by following the directions on the package.

Once everything is cooked start layering all of the items together in containers!

To layer I start with my quinoa blend (1 cup) in each of the 4 bowls.

Put ¼ cup of corn into each bowl on top of the quinoa.

Divide peppers and onions evenly between the bowls and put them beside the corn.

Then I slice up my chicken and divide that into the bowls.

Top with a pinch of cheddar cheese and cilantro (optional).

These will keep for 4-5 days in the refrigerator so stack them up and grab 1 on your way out the door!

I feel like this looks like a lot of steps but I promise its not and it is SUPER easy! Like the easiest recipe I have made while meal prepping! Only 1 pan and 1 pot are used to make the WHOLE THING! You cannot beat that lol

Finished product!!

Are you doing any awesome meal preps? Please share! I am always looking for new ideas 🙂

Even though the blog has been lacking that does not mean my meal prep game is not on fleek! Because it is and has been since I started cracking the whip 2 weeks ago.

My goals the past few weeks, in terms of my diet, are to decrease my carb (starch) intake and increase my protein intake. Easier said than done because, lets face it, I LOVE me some CARBS. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, CHIPS, all the starchy goodness lol BUT I need to cut back on them (not eliminate them completely) so that I can put less insulin into my body and HOPEFULLY lose some damn weight!

I am back to my Zumba classes twice a week and with my Fit with Type 1 Diabetes challenge I also have 2 other nights that I work out as well. Maybe this will be exactly what my body needs to kick start this weight loss that I so desperately need.

My breakfast last week was ham and egg cups. These were SO good and kept me full all the way to lunch. I ate them with melba toasts as my starch as they are a great lower carb option.

For the ham and egg cups I placed slices of ham into muffin tins, pushing them in so that they were at the bottom of the tin and right up against the sides like a cup. Once the ham was in, I added some chopped mushrooms and cracked an egg into each muffin hole. I sprinkled the tops with salt and pepper and green onion, then I baked them at 325F for about 20 minutes or until the eggs were set. Once they were completely cooled I stored them in an airtight container in the fridge. Each morning I would grab 2-3 and pop them in the microwave for about 30 seconds and ate them warm because we all know I love a hot breakfast!

I put the tilapia in tin-foil with olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper and put it on the barbecue for about 20 minutes. It was delicious.

The Brussel sprouts and squash were steamed and then mixed in with PC brand quinoa corn and black bean blend.

The quinoa blend was a little bit spicy all by itself BUT onces the Brussel sprouts were added in, it was perfect. Quinoa is a great carb choice as it has a lot of nutrients and is considered a ‘good’ carb. It is a great replacement for white rice or pasta.

My snacks consisted of cut up oranges, nectarines, and cucumber with a mini babybell cheese!

There you have it. My first week back to meal prepping and I didn’t do too shabby (even if I do say so myself). I have saved money by not going out to eat WHILE eating a much healthier diet. I still eat out once a week but that’s ok. It is my treat to myself ❤

I fell in love with this blog post. Everyone can relate to it. I know that I have had a time or two where I order my favourite thing on the menu (or an extra item because I love it so much) while out with people who are supposed to be your friends. The second you do, you get that look :0 like ‘are you seriously ordering that right now’, or they come right out and say it ‘do you really think you need the LARGE fry?’. My response? Yes I fucking do and no I will not fucking share. BAHAHA

Anyways, take a read. Its my new fave post ❤

Let me describe a situation we’ve all experienced. You’re with a friend, feeling confident enough to expose the ugliest, most-likely-to-go-viral-and-humiliate-you aspects of your life, and you find yourself wading into a story that includes a depraved episode of gluttony. Maybe you bought a tub of sour cream and ate it alone by the spoonful while watching…